Borrowing a phrase from John Sire,
"Is God one to be worshiped (i.e., he is a personal nature), or merely an intellect or force to be recognized?"
It seems some suggest God is simply an "energy" or "force", but one than can be "known" and is worthy of "worship".
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Question for Eckhart Tolle / New Age Followers
Posted by All Things Reformed at 12:12 PM
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3 comments:
I haven't ready any Tolle, though I might. I would recommend taking his picture down though, because it's the first thing people see, and it makes it look like this is a pro Tolle blog.
Just my two cents.
A notable and worthy comment. Thanks.
Hi, as I see it, the problem with what you have written here is that you have attempted to oversimplify a very complex issue. When we speak of God, we are refferring to a Being of such greatness, that we humans in ordinary states of Consciousness cannot intellectually understand. By definition, God is infinite, and this alone is impossible for the intellect to grasp. New Age essentially accepts the Hindu concept of Brahman as the Absolute, Pure Consciousness, whose nature is Existence, Consciousness and Bliss (Sat-Chit-Ananda). In a sense, it is not personal, in the way that we tend to associate personality with restrictions and limitations, and that generally the only personality we encounter directly is that of other beings in hte physical world. Also, we tend to associate Personality with Shape, Form, Colour, Light, Sound, Name etc, and Spirit / Pure Consciousness is beyond all these, yet so much more than these. So the term "Impersonal" is used. However, this does not imply that God is unconscious, or unitelligent, or uninterested in our affairs. In fact, quite the opposite. It implies that God's is so far beyond our intellectual concepts of Him, the only way to know him fully, is to immerse ourselves in Higher Consciousness. This does not mean that the ordinary person cannot know God, quite the opposite in fact, only that the extent to which we know God is determined by things that we do.
People tend to shy away from the personal view of God due to bad experiences within Religious organizations. For example, I was brought up being told that God was angry, jealous and wrathfull (Old Testament conceptions), and found this to be in complete contradiction to the concept of God as Unconditional Love as found in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospels.
For me, I found the solution in rejecting orthodox Christianity, and embracing traditional Mysticism, and New Age (I define this term differently to how others might).
It is true that there are many within the New Age field who are very soft in their beliefs, but I think if you dig a little, you'll find that most of the serious writers (I have only glimpsed at Tolle's writing, but found it to be quite good) do have quite solid foundations for their beliefs.
Anyways, this will do for now. I welcome dialogue. Come visit my Blog if your interested:
http://theparadigmexperiment.blogspot.com/
Take care,
God Bless
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